Opening the Hebrew Scriptures

David Johnson's highly readable guide to the Old Testament.

The Captains and the Kings Depart (598): 2 Kings 24:8 -17. At Jehoiakim's death, while the Babylonian and allied armies were on the march into Judah, his son Jehoiachin, a mere lad, was made king. Shortly after Nebuchanezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Jehoiachin surrendered. He and all the court, both the royal family and leading officials, all the skill artisans and commercial classes in the land, together with whole population of Jerusalem, were carried away into exile in Mesopotamia. An unskilled peasant population was left in place in Judah, which would prove to be the source of trouble many years in the future. Jehoiachin's uncle, renamed Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar, was installed on the throne as an out-an-out puppet. And Solomon's beautiful Temple was entirely despoiled of its furnishings. Sic transit gloria mundi: "thus passes the world's glory."